


Ghost in the Machine

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [7]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Guns, Missing Scene, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4374422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just how <i>did</i> Scully make it out of that ventilation shaft?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost in the Machine

_“Aaaahhhhh!!”_

She’d been counting her shots; there was one round left. If she didn’t hit the power supply with this one, she was, as her brother Charlie would colorfully put it, epically fucked.

Her left hand was starting to sweat and slip. Her right hand shook. She was running out of time, and fast. In a last, desperate attempt, she took aim and fired.

_Ping!_

Another ricochet. The fan kept whirring, and she didn’t think it was her imagination that it picked up even  _more_  speed. She almost threw her gun at it in despair, but she stopped.

No. This wasn’t how she was going to die, not killed by some machine.

With a grunt, she put the gun back in its holster, then reached her right hand up to grab the ledge, just as her left hand slipped off. It took almost all of her remaining strength to slowly draw her legs up, one at a time, and pull off her socks.

With her bare feet braced against the sides of the ventilation shaft, she was finally able to gain some purchase and slowly work her way toward the gap. As she crept toward it, inch by excruciating inch, she made the conscious decision to get angry -- at the operating system, at its creator, at Mulder, at herself. Despair would make her weak; anger would make her strong.

There was a vent access door half a body-length down the connecting shaft. She could see it. She just had to get there. With a frustrated growl, she heaved herself the rest of the way onto the ledge and into the other shaft. Immediately, the fan’s pull on her lessened. It didn’t go away entirely -- she still had to brace herself in order to avoid falling back through the opening -- but she was able to stop for a moment and catch her breath.

They’d been on such a roll. After the case in Philly, the next three were easily solved, with perfectly rational explanations for whatever paranormal phenomena Mulder had initially thought were responsible. She’d been so sure Brad Wilczek was to blame for the deaths in this case, but unless he was somehow controlling his machine from within a federal prison, it did appear that he was in the clear on this one. The technology he’d created, however… it was still mind-boggling that an artificial intelligence could exist that was so advanced as to be capable of  _murder._

And yet here it was, trying very hard to make her its next victim.

At last, she reached the access door. It swung open with one good whack from her fist, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she lowered herself back to the floor. She looked around, trying to determine where she was relative to the stairwell where she’d left Mulder, when she heard his voice coming from just down the hall.

_“Now I can put in the virus.”_

Her ears were still ringing from all of the wind, but that didn’t stop her from hearing the click of a weapon being drawn.

_“Not bad, Agent Mulder. I’ve been trying to access the CPU for the past two years. Now please, take out your gun and remove the clip.”_

Oh hell no you don’t.


End file.
